IT WORKED.

Weeks of not working and trouble-shooting and taking apart and putting back together and reading papers until my eyes bled and trying again and wanting to rip the rig apart with my bare hands and kinda doing so at one point and FINALLY IT WORKED.

(For those of you who are totally confused at this point, this is--predictably--about my thesis. I'm working on the second of my three aims, and have been running into endless technical difficulties trying to get a new method to work.)

Ok, so the results aren't entirely pretty, and there is still a ways to go in refining my technique, but DAMN. This feels so good I can't keep my finger off the capslock. YES.

Via Think Progress, I have learned that:

The Fox TV series ‘24′ will include fewer torture scenes in its final episodes this season. Executive Producer Howard Gordon claimed that the change was not due to pressure from the military, but rather because it had become cliché. “What was once an extraordinary or exceptional moment is starting to feel a little trite. The idea of physical coercion or torture is no longer a novelty or surprise,” Gordon said.

(Bold mine)

You want to know what keeps me up at night? The fact that the idea of physical coercion or torture is no longer a novelty or surprise. Millions of viewers are so numb to the sight of other humans being brutalized that producers can't even use torture-porn to sell shit any more.

Deeeeee-sturbing.

Molly Ivins
August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007